1.
This is the Coffee Queen of 1940, Peggy Van Vliet, posing inside the “world’s largest iced coffee glass” with, well, an iced coffee:
2.
This is stuntwoman Lillian Boyer hanging from the wing of an airplane extremely casually:
3.
This absolutely ENORMOUS tower was built entirely out of alcohol confiscated during Prohibition:
4.
Here’s, in all its glory, is an underwater alligator race:
5.
This is welder Terry Smith just absolutely munchin’ and crunchin’ on some records:
6.
This is father Paul Carpenter apparently trying to set the world record for highest baby toss:
7.
One of the biggest fads of the 1950s was “phonebooth stuffing,” where-in a bunch of people would, well, stuff themselves into a phonebooth:
8.
Here’s a mother and son casually watching a nuclear bomb test in the distance:
9.
And here’s a group of people casually enjoying a swim while, in the distance, an atomic bomb detonates:
10.
Speaking of which, people were so caught up in atomic-mania at they crowned a “Miss Atomic Bomb” in 1957. Here’s what she looked like:
11.
This is a beauty mask that apparently was made to cure hangovers:
12.
This is what a totally safe, totally not-dangeorous chairlift looked like in the 1950s:
13.
This is football player John Sweatlock catching a whole turkey without excellent form:
14.
This is your classic picture of an underwater ping pong game flanked by a shark:
15.
Here’s a man and a kangaroo going jump for jump on a trampoline:
16.
This photo shows conjoined twins Violet and Daisy Hilton in the mid-1920s, when Violet was briefly engaged to musician Maurice Lambert:
17.
Here’s a look at a woman competing in the high jump from all the way back in the 1908 Olympics:
18.
At first glance, this just looks like a regular old-timey baseball team photo. But look a little closer and you’ll spot what many believe is the very first captured moment of someone, well… flipping the bird:
19.
Let’s get a closer look:
20.
This is Ruth Jump, well, jumping off a diving board while shooting a bow and arrow:
21.
This is Alan Hogarth trying on his invention, shoes designed to let him walk on water:
22.
For one brief, magical moment top-loading dishwashers were a thing:
23.
This is woman undergoing an early beauty procedure meant to remove freckles:
24.
Here’s a stuntman flying off a ramp and absolutely cascading through the air in a tiny car:
25.
This just might be a picture of the very first combined car and plane crash:
26.
Pictured here is a circus strongwoman balancing not only a man on her chest but also an entire piano:
27.
Here are some truly unhinged individuals enjoying lunch atop a skyscraper:
28.
Ladies and gentlemen, here are three chimpanzees on a bicycle:
29.
Here’s golfer Joe Kirkwood summarily executing his caddy, uh, I mean, hitting a golf ball out of his mouth:
30.
Here’s a bunch of WAY too calm people about to be jumped by a very intense man on a motorcycle:
31.
This, in all its glory, is a meeting of the US Board of Tea Experts. They’re, well, testing teas for sale in the USA:
32.
Here’s a cat pushing a baby in stroller… just because:
33.
This is actor Marty Feldman making one of his trademark faces. You might actually be familiar with some of his roles, like Igor in Young Frankenstein:
34.
Here’s a vintage car graveyard, containing a bunch of very old cars about to meet their demise:
35.
Here’s a woman with just absolutely gigantic eyelashes:
36.
Here’s a little girl giving her dolls haircuts in a completely not terrifying at all way:
37.
Here’s a whole bunch of nurses helping a whole bunch of babies both fight jaundice and get some vitamin D:
38.
Here are a bunch of soldiers posing like little schoolchildren while another soldier jumps them:
39.
This was a short-lived way to transport prisoners on motorcycle:
40.
Here’s Babe Ruth and Walter Johnson holding not one but TWO prize-winning roosters in 1927:
41.
During its move to a new location, this house slipped off the transport truck, creating an incredibly bizarre sight:
42.
Here’s an elephant just casually resting its foot on a man:
43.
This picture from the 1927 Tour de France shows riders Julien Vervaecke and Maurice Geldhof taking a quick cigarette break while competing:
44.
Here’s musician Fred Lemire playing world record world’s largest banjo:
45.
This is a scene from the premiere of the movie Underwater, which was held… underwater:
46.
This smiling fellow is a lab technician hired to observe couples kissing in order to gauge the durability of lipstick:
47.
Here’s model Madelle Hegeler wearing a whole bunch of bizarre jewelry made by Salvadore Dali:
48.
Here are two men testing a bulletproof vest in the absolute safest way possible:
49.
This is a real photo of two people, Gladys Roy and Ivan Unger, playing tennis on top of a plane flying at 3000 feet:
50.
Here’s photographer Jack Reilly prancing about the 74-story-tall Bank of Manhattan while it was under construction in 1929:
51.
Before modern car washes were invented, one particularly wacky idea was for cars to drive around through water in a circle:
52.
Here’s the contestants of the World’s Most Beautiful Legs competition in 1951:
53.
This is pilot Charles Godefroy flying his plane through the Arc de Triomphe in Paris:
54.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is a prototype flying car, meant to well, drive on land and fly in the sky:
55.
This, in all its extremely-dangerous-looking glory, is a woman taking an “electric bath”:
56.
This is a prototype for a baby stroller made to withstand gas attacks during World War II:
57.
This is what an average children’s playground looked like in 1908:
58.
This is beautician Max Factor with his invention, the beauty calibrator, a device designed to show which parts of a woman’s face needed more or less make-up:
59.
Back when people were so inclined to do so, this was one way to board and travel by blimp:
60.
And, finally, this is a woman wearing a hat that’s also a shoe. A shat. Or a hoot. You be the judge:
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